


Old-Fashioned

by tielan



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Humor, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-11
Updated: 2013-02-27
Packaged: 2017-11-28 22:18:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/679480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of vignettes of ordinary interactions, divinity and humanity, and the leavening touch of amusement that any SHIELD agent must learn to cope with the hard realities of <strike>herding cats</strike> dealing with heroes...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Truthfully, I have no idea if the doors in Nellis AF Base open on proximity sensor or not. I imagine they can't all do so...
> 
> And yes, this was to be another Steve/Maria fic that never got past this first scene. This happens a lot lately.

The doors in Nellis AF Base don’t open on proximity sensors.

Accustomed to the helicarrier, Maria only realises this when she heads for the exit to the conference room with her tablet and files in one hand and her half-full mug of coffee in the other, and suddenly has no hands for the closed door before her.

“We’re a little old-fashioned here,” Colonel Rhodes says behind her, his voice soft and wry with amusement.

A shadow falls across her, and Captain Rogers steps past to hold open the door for her. “Lieutenant.”

Seems like the doors aren’t the only old-fashioned things around here.

Maria believes firmly in the right of a woman to make her own choices and to live by them without judgement from the world. She can open her own doors if she has to; right now, she doesn’t have the hands free and Rogers does. It costs her nothing to protest and she wouldn’t argue with practicality anyway.

So she goes through the door with only a brief nod of thanks.

As she passes him – rather closely since Rogers is certainly not a little guy anymore – Maria catches the briefest whiff of a warm male scent beneath fading soap and gets a little shiver down her spine.


	2. Passing Notes In Study Hall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maria's glad he's not dead, but sometimes she's not sure what to make of the new Phil Coulson.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another ficbit fragment I found in my 'finished' folder with the same title of "Old Fashioned", although it's not exactly a continuation. For a while, I had the idea of "Phil Coulson: Agent of SHIELD, Superhero Nanny, and Matchmaker - Avengers a specialty" possibly feeding into the fic "Nobody's Counting" (leaving recovering agents to do nothing with their highly-trained minds is a Very Stupid Thing) which was going to be mayhem, chaos, and awkward romance. No time, no inclination.

Maria blames Phil for putting the idea in her head in the first place.

“You know,” Phil remarks one evening after the armchair quarterbacking is done, “I think Rogers rather likes you.”

She looks up from the brief she’s signing up, not quite sure she heard him correctly. “Excuse me?”

Phil smiles - that secretive smile that he taught her to use when the circumstances called for an enigmatic expression. “I think Steve Rogers likes you.”

“That’s what I thought you said.” Maria isn’t quite sure whether to be horrified, flattered, or dismayed. Not so much by the thought that Steve Rogers likes her, as by the thought that Phil is playing _matchmaker_. “Except you couldn’t have, because we're SHIELD agents, not back at high school.”

“I could pass him a note during study hall,” Phil says, looking rather less the stern instructor and a lot younger and more impish. Just one of the changes in him since Loki nearly killed him. Not that Maria minds; he’s alive, which is better than dead. And it’s good to see him relax a little more. Except when it isn’t. “Or is that too old-fashioned these days? Send him a Twitter message?”

“Considering Rogers grew up back when only a handful of kids graduated to high school,” Maria notes dryly, “I doubt there’s anything we could think of that could be too ‘old fashioned’ for him.”

 


End file.
